


baby, take me to the feeling

by Araine



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Ear Kink, F/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 15:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17388545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Araine/pseuds/Araine
Summary: Elf ears are remarkably sensitive. Hawke finds out the hard way.(Or: shameless Fenhawke ear-kink.)





	baby, take me to the feeling

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a response to a request for Fenhawke ear-kink and finally imported over from Tumblr.

It’s not the worst they’ve been after a fight, but they’re still spattered with spider’s blood and viscera. Fenris breathes hard for a moment, resting against his sword. The unearthly glow of his tattoos fades, the ghastly shadows they cast disappearing. Isabela wipes her knives and inspects them.

“Well, that was fun,” Merrill says succinctly.

Hawke chuckles, shoulders her staff. “Nothing like killing giant spiders to liven up the day,” she says. She sneaks a glance at Fenris. He’s wiped most of the gore from his face, and is staring into the murky darkness of the cave. He looks up at her, and Hawke has to fight the urge to look away.

She isn’t sure where things stand on that front. She’s made her position clear—she finds him attractive, and she cares for him. Sometimes, she thinks he feels the same. Other times, she’s not so sure.

Still, she’s never been one to lack for courage. And he’s still got a piece of spider gut hanging from the tip of one ear.

“You’ve got a little something,” she says. Fenris looks down at her, confusion writ all over his face. Hawke smiles, steps closer. Their chests are almost touching, and she can see the different shades of green in his wide eyes. She’s close enough that if she wanted to, she could kiss him. The thought is wild and sends her pulse pounding.

“Right here,” Hawke says, and she knows it’s a little breathless. She reaches up, runs her finger down Fenris’s ear in one smooth motion. He shudders, involuntarily, eyes slipping half-shut. Lips part, and he emits a breath from deep in his chest. Hawke is not so naïve that she doesn’t recognize it for what it is: a moan of pleasure.

Fenris catches her wrist in his hand. His grip is strong, compelling. He looks down at her, his eyes wide and his pupils large and black. Hawke isn’t sure what she’s done to elicit such a reaction, but she stares wide-eyed back.

“Hawke,” Fenris says, his voice low and tightly controlled. “Please.”

She smiles weakly, and drops the bit of spider viscera hanging from her fingertips. Fenris releases her wrist.

“Oh,” Merril says, and Hawke remembers that there are other people in the cave. “Oh my.” Hawke spins around. Merril has gone bright pink, all the way down to her neck. Isabela is smirking, looking as if she’d like to wolf whistle. “Do you two want to find a nice private cave or something?” she asks.

Hawke knows that she is blushing. She steps away from Fenris, staunchly avoiding looking at him. “No,” she says, pulling all her confidence into her voice, hoping to cover the awkwardness of the moment. “Let’s just move on.”

For the remainder of the journey, they don’t speak except to issue battle commands. As soon as they return to Kirkwall, Fenris excuses himself and returns to his mansion. Merrill, too, claims business at home—though Hawke expects hers is more legitimate.

“Hawke,” Isabela says, looking at her. “Let’s get a drink. At the Hanged Man. I’ll buy.”

Hawke nods. She wants nothing more than to drown her shame in a tankard of cheap ale, and Isabela doesn’t buy often. She follows Isabela to their favorite watering hole. Isabela orders two pints and steers to a table in the back of the room. Hawke raises the tankard to her lips, downs nearly half her pint in one go.

It burns as it hits her stomach, as if she’s swallowed a mouthful of fire. She sets the tankard down on the table, immediately regretting her pace. Bread or some other food would cut the sick roiling in her stomach—she hasn’t eaten since the morning—but she decides she doesn’t care. She wants to be drunk, and fast.

Isabela is regarding her contemplatively over her own pint, not saying anything. Hawke doesn’t like that knowing look in her eyes. She takes another generous swallow of ale, and tries not to vomit on the table in the middle of the Hanged Man. She manages, valiantly holding in the contents of her stomach. By the time it all settles, she feels dizzy and pleasantly tipsy.

Isabela still hasn’t said anything. She’s damned perceptive about other people’s emotions when she wants to be, Hawke thinks. Isabela seems perfectly aware that Hawke wants nothing more than to be very, very drunk right now. Still, she can’t sit here and not remember that Isabela witnessed—whatever that was, back in the cave. She and Merrill. She’ll have to apologize to Merrill  later, but Isabela’s right here, and Hawke’s got her courage up.

“Look,” Hawke says, barreling forward. “About what happened earlier. I’m sorry.”

Isabela chuckles over her own pint. “There’s no need to apologize,” she says, annoyingly matter-of-fact about the whole thing. “You two are both wildly attracted to each other, and trust me—I don’t blame either one of you for that.” She grins, half-cocked, her eyes sweeping over Hawke’s figure. “It’s not my business what you do in your private life. Just maybe don’t do it in public next time—I think you almost made poor Merrill faint.”

“I’ll apologize to Merrill later,” Hawke says. “I didn’t realize that would happen. I’m still not even sure what did happen.”

“Oh, dear,” Isabela sighs. She pauses a moment, takes a swig of her own ale. Taps her fingers on the table. Finally she meets Hawke’s eyes, strangely serious. “Hawke, have you ever been with an elf?”

Hawke frowns, confused. “No,” she says. “There were a few elves in Lothering, but I never… I mean, Fenris is the first elf I’ve ever…” She trails off into a cloud of confusion, no doubt aided by the alcohol. She’s not sure what to put in that blank space. He’s not the first elf she’s flirted with, but she also can’t say that she’s had relations with him either.

Everything just feels different, when it comes to him. She used to be a good flirt, but recently she’s lost the guidebook. She keeps stepping wrong.

“Alright, look,” Isabela says. She meets Hawke’s eyes, rests one hand authoritatively over Hawke’s. This must be what it feels like to have an older sister, Hawke thinks deliriously. “There’s certain facts of elvish… anatomy, you should be aware of. Their ears are very sensitive. Not as sensitive as… certain other parts”—she says it with an innuendo that leaves Hawke in little doubt as to what parts she means—“but close enough.”

Hawke freezes, staring at Isabela. She feels unwelcomely sober. Shame settles into her stomach, burning like all the alcohol she’s just downed. She swallows past the awkward lump in her throat. She stares down at the amber liquid in her cup. She wants nothing more than to crawl into it and never come out. “Oh no,” she says. She looks at Isabela, hoping that the other woman will laugh at the hilarious prank she’s just pulled on her friend. Isabela just stares back, looking vaguely apologetic. “So earlier,” Hawke chokes out. “It was like I was touching his—“

She can’t finish the sentence. She grips her tankard tightly.

“Pretty much,” Isabela says.

“No wonder Merrill got so flustered. What if Varric had seen? He’d never let me hear the end of it. What if Anders had seen?”

“Just be glad they didn’t.” Isabela grins, shrugs helplessly. “I have it on good authority that it’s quite pleasurable. You might want to keep that in mind for… later.”

Hawke will probably have an impression of the tankard’s handle in her palm later. She doesn’t care. “I’m not even sure there will be a later,” she says, sudden uncertainty pouring out of her. She looks at Isabela, imploring. “I basically groped him back there. He wouldn’t even speak to me afterwards.”

Isabela rolls her eyes eloquently. “Oh, please,” she says. “You two want to fuck like dogs in heat. The only reason you’re not is because neither of you can get over yourselves long enough to actually do the deed. Really, you should just go over there and kiss him and get all that sexual tension out of the air.”

Hawke ignores the crude statement. Whether or not Fenris wants to bed her is not as clear cut as Isabela seems to think it is. She’s sure he’s attracted to her, that he cares for her. That does not change the fact that she is a mage, and a reminder of everything he hates. It does not change that he is only starting to learn what freedom truly means to him, and Hawke will do nothing to jeopardize that.

She downs the rest of her pint, sets it down on the table, looks across at her friend.

“Isabela,” Hawke says, deadly serious. “I want to be drunker than I have ever been in my life right now.”

Isabela catches the hint. She grins, pushes the remainder of her pint at Hawke. Stands up. “I’ll go get us a few more, shall I?”

Hawke starts to work on the second pint.

Several hours later and Hawke is as drunk as she has ever been, as was promised. Isabela managed to get Varric in on the evening, without telling him its impetus. She knows that he is wildly curious, but Isabela for once is being tight lipped about the whole thing. Together the two of them managed to coax food into her, and they’d spent the rest of the evening playing a rousing game of Diamondback for pints.

She leaves the Hanged Man and stumbles back up to Hightown. She’s amazed that she hasn’t been robbed, but the night is clear of thugs for once. A cool breeze is coming down off the land, wiping away the faint smells of Lowtown’s foundries and the docks. She pauses outside the doorway to her estate, leaning on it. The Viscount’s Keep looms in the distance, casting a shadow over the courtyard. She salutes it jauntily. The night is lovely, and she doesn’t relish waking Bodahn or her mother only to be asked where she’s been.

She should apologize to Fenris. The thought lodges in her brain and won’t leave. She put him in an awkward position, and she owes him a decent apology.

She sets off across Hightown. She passes several patrols of guards, who recognize her—and recognize her inebriated state—and let her be. She has no doubt that this will get to Aveline by morning, but she has trouble caring at the moment.

Hawke finds herself at the door to Fenris’s mansion. She hesitates. She has a standing invitation to come in whenever she likes—knocking is impractical, with only one person living in a house this big—but she finds herself hesitating. How will she be received?

She feels idiotic, standing there on the doorstep, hand hovering on the latch. She’s never been unsure like this before. Did she come all this way, only to turn craven now? Should she come back later? A guard patrol turns the corner, looks at her suspiciously, and she finds her decision made for her. She opens the door and slips inside.

Hawke is not the quietest intruder. She bumps a table on her way in, nearly knocking a dusty vase onto the floor. She rights the piece, though she doubts Fenris cares about it. If nothing else, she’ll save it so that he can break it purposefully later.

Fenris greets her in the entrance hall of the palatial manse. The only light comes through the windows, Kirkwall’s lamps casting grand shadows. Fenris descends the grand staircase slowly, each step deliberate. She can see his face by the lamplight. His eyes are wide, lips drawn.

“Hawke,” he greets her, reaching the end of the stairs. “What a surprise.”

“Hello, Fenris,” she slurs. She can smell him, plain soap and sweat and iron. Heat coils in her belly, and she cants towards him unconsciously. She smiles.

“You’re drunk,” he says. It’s a flat statement—there’s no judgment in it, but maybe something of a question. He wonders why she is here, now, and drunk.

“Not as drunk as I was,” she counters. It’s true. The walk has sobered her some. Not enough, she realizes with dim panic. She can’t keep her head around him as it is. Her toes are already curling in her boots with the force of attraction, and the concern in his green eyes is not helping matters.

“What are you doing here?” He sounds weary, and confused, and a touch accusatory.

Hawke draws herself up. “I came here to apologize,” she says. “Isabela explained it to me—“

Fenris shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he says. “You didn’t know.”

Hawke frowns at him, stepping forward. She can’t help but feel disconcerted. He should be… angrier, or something. “It’s not fine. Just because I didn’t know what I was doing doesn’t excuse it. I shouldn’t have touched you when you didn’t want it.”

Suddenly Fenris won’t meet her eyes. He’s tense, like a rope drawn taut. “It’s not that I didn’t want it,” he says. “You surprised me, but it wasn’t… it wasn’t unwelcome.”

“Oh,” Hawke says. She looks at him, searching his features. Wonders if his pupils are dilated, as they were in the cave. He is leaning towards her, as surely as she is leaning towards him. Hawke wets her lips with her tongue. Her eyes flicker up to his ears, which she will never be able to look at the same way. Curiosity overcomes her. “Does it really feel as good as Isabela says?”

Fenris clears his throat. “It… perhaps,” he says. “I’m not sure what Isabela says.”

“Well,” Hawke says with a flirtatious ease that she hasn’t experienced in months, “perhaps we should try it out for ourselves.” She reaches up to experimentally splay her hand against his chest. It’s warm and solid and she can feel his heartbeat underneath her fingertips. She looks up at him through her lashes.

“Hawke…” he says, and she’s not sure if it’s warning or invitation. She’s not sure if he knows.

She leans up on her toes and kisses him. For a moment he does nothing and she feels a flash of fear—has she gone too far? Then, he kisses her back. Like everything he does, there is a fierce intensity to Fenris’s kiss. He seems to focus all of his coiled energy into the kiss. He holds her tightly to his chest, and they seem to mold together. This close, she can feel how aroused he is.

Determined to give as good as she gets, Hawke surges up into him. He moans appreciation, deep in his throat, and opens his mouth for her. She drags her teeth along his bottom lip, teasingly. Fenris gulps in a quick breath and kisses her, hard.

Hawke buries her hands in Fenris’s hair. It’s amazingly fine, and soft to the touch.  Her nails scrape the back of his neck, then drift to his jawline. She can feel the raised lyrium pathways etched throughout his skin. Fenris draws in a hiss of breath as she touches them, and she moves on. She reaches up, experimentally, to touch his ear. Cartilage folds under her touch. She can feel his arousal jump where it’s pressed against her abdomen.

Oh. So Isabela was right, she thinks.

She breaks the kiss to lean up and nibble at his ear. Fenris makes a strangled sound the moment her teeth touch flesh. Hawke continues, lavishing attention on the sensitive appendage. She kisses the tip, brushing her lips against it.

“Hawke,” Fenris says. His voice is thick with arousal, little more than a whisper. She has waited so long to hear him speak to her in just that tone of voice.

“Mmmmm,” Hawke says, returning her attention to his ear. She can tell that he’s gone tense in her arms, but she’s giddy on drink and on arousal and doesn’t care.

“Hawke,” he says again, this time with more force. He sets her away from him, gently, holding her arms in place in his strong grip. She furrows her brow, confusion mixing with arousal mixing with apprehension. She had thought things were going well.

“What is it, Fenris?” she asks.

“We shouldn’t do this,” he says. “You’re drunk.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” she demands waspishly.

Fenris draws back. Only a few steps, but it’s enough to open a chasm between them. “I’m not willing to… take advantage of you like that. I don’t want you to do something you might regret.”

She’s stung by that. She wants him just as much sober as she does right now. Surely he realizes that. “You think I’ll regret this?”

Hawke searches Fenris for any emotion. He is almost calculatedly blank, and his eyes flicker away from hers. He is about to cut her out again, she knows. “You might,” he says.

She wants to scream, or pound on his chest, or break one of the expensive furnishings, or even cry. Instead, she reaches back, invading his personal space once more. She grasps his upper arm so that he cannot turn away from her. “I want you, Fenris,” she says, willing him to see her sincerity. “Turn me away if you want, but understand that at least.”

He stands very still. She wonders what he is thinking. There is a longing in those green eyes that cuts her to the quick—and then, it is gone as quickly as it arrived. “You should go, Hawke,” he says.

She gathers up her dignity, though she feels like crying. “Fine,” she says. “Right. I should go. Just—think about it. Please.”

He doesn’t answer. She leaves the way she came in, far soberer and without knocking anything over. She returns to her estate at some dreadful hour of the morning, and in the morning her mother gives her a less than sympathetic look and brings a cure for hangovers that tastes awful but does help.

A few days later, she goes to apologize to Merrill as promised. The elf shrugs as she pours Hawke a cup of tea. “It’s alright,” she says. “It was a little awkward, but I’m glad. You’re cute, together.”

Hawke takes the offered tea cup. “There’s nothing between me and Fenris, Merrill,” she says. It is a lie, but it is also the truth. They have made no promises to each other, and she doesn’t like to think of what might happen if she went to him sober. Would he turn her away once again?

“Oh,” Merrill says. “Well, I’m sorry then.”

Hawke nods. She’s sorry too. 


End file.
